The bodies of Oscar-winning American actor Gene Hackman, his spouse Betsy Arakawa, and their dog have been discovered in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, residence.
Hackman won two Academy Awards for his work on the films Unforgiven and The French Connection over his more than 60-year career.
We can confirm that Gene Hackman and his wife were discovered dead at their home on Sunset Trail on Wednesday afternoon, according to a statement released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff in New Mexico.
“This is an active investigation – however, at this time we do not believe that foul play was a factor.”
Hackman was 95 years old, and his wife was 64. She was a classical pianist.
His portrayal of Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection earned him the Oscar for best actor. In 1992, he won another for best supporting actor, this time for his portrayal of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western Unforgiven.
Other Oscar nominations include the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, in which he played his breakout role as Buck Barrow opposite Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway; the 1970 film I Never Sang for My Father; and the 1988 film Mississippi Burning, in which he played the agent.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office reported: “On 26 February, 2025 at approximately 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, 95 and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64 and a dog were found deceased.”
‘Gene Hackman could play anyone’
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hackman, a highly acclaimed actor, portrayed over 100 characters, including the villain Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring Superman films.
Hackman costarred with a number of Hollywood titans, such as Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in Reds (1981), Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein (1974), and Al Pacino in Scarecrow (1973).
In addition, he starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, and Runaway Jury.
Coppola led the tributes to the late star on Thursday, calling him “a great artist”. Posting on Instagram he wrote: “Gene Hackman a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity. I mourn his loss, and celebrate his existence and contribution.”
Hackman was referred to be “a genius” and one of the “greatest to grace the silver screen” by Valerie Perrine, who costarred with him in Superman (1978) as his character’s on-screen fiancée Eve Teschmacher.
She posted on X: “His performances are legendary. His talent will be missed. Goodbye my sweet Lex Till we meet again.”
Star Trek actor George Takei posted that “we have lost one of the true giants of the screen”.
“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it,” he wrote. “He could be everyone and no one, a towering presence or an everyday Joe. That’s how powerful an actor he was. He will be missed, but his work will live on forever.”
Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor also called Hackman as a “genius” performer. “A true legend whose legacy will live on,” he wrote.
In addition to his Oscars, he received a Screen Actors Guild Award, four Golden Globes, and two Baftas.
In the 1996 film The Birdcage, he played a conservative senator alongside Nathan Lan and Robin Williams, who played a gay couple.
Following his final big-screen role as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, he left Hollywood to live a more sedate life in New Mexico.
‘Actors had to be handsome’
Hackman was born in California in 1930, and his family moved about a lot. He lied about his age when he joined the US Marine Corps at the age of 16, and he served for four and a half years.
Before being released in 1951, he served in China, Hawaii, and Japan.
After serving in the military, Hackman lived and worked in New York. He also attended the University of Illinois to study television production and journalism before returning to California to follow his childhood acting ambition.
He became friends with a young Dustin Hoffman at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
“I suppose I wanted to be an actor from the time I was about 10, maybe even younger than that,” he once said. “Recollections of early movies that I had seen and actors that I admired like James Cagney, Errol Flynn, those kind of romantic action guys.”
“When I saw those actors, I felt I could do that. But I was in New York for about eight years before I had a job. I sold ladies shoes, polished leather furniture, drove a truck.”
“I think that if you have it in you and you want it bad enough, you can do it.”
He added that he “wanted to act” but had “always been convinced that actors had to be handsome”.
“That came from the days when Errol Flynn was my idol. I’d come out of a theatre and be startled when I looked in a mirror because I didn’t look like Flynn. I felt like him.”
In 1963, he returned to New York and began doing little TV parts and Off-Broadway shows, such as the comedy Any Wednesday at the Music Box Theatre.
In the 1970s, however, he truly started to establish himself, starring as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, a detective in New York City, in The French Connection.
He soon started to appear frequently on the big screen in movies like The Poseidon Adventure, a catastrophe movie from 1972.
Before returning in 1992 to perform Death and the Maiden at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, he previously starred in the films Children From Their Games at the former Morosco Theatre, Poor Richard at the Helen Hayes Theatre, and The Natural Look at the Longacre Theatre.
After 30 years of marriage and raising three kids together, Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, separated in 1986.
With the exception of a rare public appearance at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, where he received the Cecil B. deMille award, he and his second wife, Betsy, remained out of the spotlight in their final years.
‘Not going to act any longer’
He informed Reuters in 2008 that he was “not going to act any longer” even though there had been no formal statement.
“I’ve been told not to say that over the last few years, in case some real wonderful part comes up, but I really don’t want to do it any longer.”
He said that he was shifting his focus from the big screen to his more subdued, peaceful love of novel writing.
“I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press,” he once said.
“It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on-screen. I think of myself, and feel like I’m quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that.”
